You know how to set goals, now we talk about the importance to Set Practice Times.

Your teacher or director should tell you how often and how long your individual practice times should be.

If not, keep in mind two general rules: practicing often is more important than having lengthy practices, and the better you are, the more you have to practice to improve.

Practicing every day is ideal. Skipping a day occasionally won't hurt, and may even be necessary to rest your muscles and keep you fresh and excited about playing.

But you should know that after skipping a day, you will usually start out the next day further behind than you were on the day before you skipped.

Skipping a day often (say, more than once a week) will make it difficult for you to make progress, because you will keep losing the progress you have already made.

If you don't have time, just doing your warm-ups or cool-downs is better than skipping a day.

Young musicians and other beginners do not need long practices to make progress. A ten-year-old beginning trumpet player, for example, may only need practices of fifteen or twenty minutes; any more than that will probably just strain the playing muscles.

But the better you get, the longer your practices will have to be if you want to keep progressing. A sixteen-year-old pianist who has been playing for more than ten years may need to practice more than an hour a day to make further progress.

Professionals practice several hours a day. At the higher levels, you will have a private teacher who will help you determine how much to practice.

If you have been practicing hard and have shown your interest and determination to become a good player and cannot afford a teacher to take you to the next level, please talk to your director or contact a local music program about finding scholarship money for lessons.

Now read Now read STEP 3 - Warm Up

Catherine Schmidt-Jones attended Rice University, completing a B.A. in chemistry as well as the B. Music and M. Music. Currently teaching brass and guitar privately. Further information can be found at connexions.